Masculine Domination: Investing in Gender?

Transcription

Ashall: Masculine Domination
Masculine Domination: Investing in
Gender?
1. First, I will briefly outline Bourdieu's theory, contextualising it in the
Marxist and structuralist thought from which it emerged, and then outline the
adoption of Bourdieuian theory by, and similarity with, aspects of feminist
thought.
Wendy Ashall
2. Next, I will outline the use of ‘capital’, as discussed by Marx and Bourdieu.
3. Finally I will outline what modifications would enable such theorisation to
better explain the persistence of the gender hierarchy.
Abstract
It is my intention in this article to investigate whether Bourdieu’s theory of
cultural capital, as outlined in Masculine Domination, can be said to adequately
account for the subordinate position of women and the perpetuation of masculine domination as evidenced in education and the workplace. I will argue
that the ‘gendered habitus’, as outlined by Bourdieu (1930-2002) in Masculine
Domination, successfully addresses the inferior status of women, providing a
useful tool for the analysis of the unequal power relations between the sexes.
Further, I will show that Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital may explain
why women so often appear to collude in their own subordination; why girls
still appear to favour the more ‘traditionally feminine’ subjects at school and
later university, leading them to eventually enter ‘traditional’ jobs which are
invariably of lower status.
1. Bourdieu, Class Analysis, Feminisms
Pierre Bourdieu may be regarded as one of the most influential sociologists
in recent years; his texts have been widely discussed, dismissed, deconstructed and critiqued. His theory of cultural capital sought to explain the persistence of class inequality, as exemplified by unequal levels of scholastic
achievement, arguing that this inequity was due to the education system itself
(Bourdieu & Passeron, 1998). He criticised the assumption that unequal
achievement was the result of difference in ‘natural’ ability, believing instead
that ‘...the scholastic yield from educational action depends on the Cultural
Capital previously invested by the family’ (Bourdieu, 1986b:244).1
It is my contention that it would be more helpful to think about gender as
central to habitus and as a form of cultural capital. An understanding of
both feminine and masculine habitus, and the symbolic and economic
rewards that these do or do not bring, helps us to understand the persistence
of gender inequality in contemporary societies. Despite second wave feminisms’ assertion that capitalism is gendered (Gottfried, 1998:451), we have
some way to go before competently theorising the interplay between class
and gender. I have previously argued (Ashall, 1999) that we should seek to
study ‘gender capital’; parallel concepts such as ‘race capital’ are also now
called for (McRobbie, 2002; Moi 2000). Here I return to this argument following the publication, in English, of Masculine Domination. Though
Bourdieu says little that is new here (Jenkins, 2002:xi), this book represents
the mature embodiment of his thought on gender as the fundamental symbolic classification, the model of social division.
Bourdieu’s theory has several key concepts: the different forms of capital
‘Cultural, Symbolic, Economic and Social’ and the concepts of the ‘field’,
‘symbolic violence’ and ‘habitus’. Bourdieu described the three forms of cultural capital as ‘Embodied’,2 ‘Objectified’3 and ‘Institutionalised’.4 However,
such a form of analysis is problematic, for by prioritising class as the central
feature of society one invariably obscures other key factors, such as gender,
age and ethnicity. Yet gender is central to Bourdieu’s argument; he sought to
overturn Levi-Strauss’ conception of gender as the fundamental symbolic
binary opposition (Levi-Strauss, 1949:24-25), turning the idealist theory into
a materialist schema (Bourdieu, 2001:34) in a way not dissimilar to Marx’s
treatment of Hegel (Jenkins, 2002:37). Further, many feminists have sought
to ‘appropriate’ (Moi, 2000) Bourdieu’s theory to explain the subordinate
position of women in contemporary western societies, and there are certain
affinities between the two schools of thought.
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Studies in Social and Political Thought
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Bourdieu believed that the point of social research was to enable people to
better understand their own actions and those of others. This echoes many
feminist calls for research to be an empowering process.5 Chyun-Fung Shi
argues that feminism and Bourdieu share a common focus on body, language
and social practice (Shi, 2001:55); further, both concentrate on the way the
subject is embedded in power relations (McNay, 1999:111). By revealing the
interplay between ‘natural’ and ‘social’ reproduction, Bourdieu may help feminism overcome the essentialist/nonessentialist divide (Moi, 2000:316).6
Thus, there are many overlaps between aspects of feminist thought and that
of Bourdieu. The question remains, however, whether it is necessary to modify the theory to fully explain the subordinate position of women.
2. Habitus and Capital
In Bourdieu’s explanation of inequality the habitus is central. The different
forms of cultural capital, rooted in the possession of economic capital, interrelate to reproduce social hierarchies and conceal their arbitrary nature. A
person’s level of education, the cultural capital that they possess, combined
with the value of the networks on which it is possible for them to draw and
the amount of economic capital at their disposal, gives a person certain
advantages or disadvantages that structure their possible occupation and
income. Combined, the forms of capital produce a person’s ‘habitus’ or predisposition, a set of prescribed, embodied inclinations.
Bridget Fowler argues that Bourdieu presents us with a fixed analysis of gender domination (Fowler, 2002:2), but this impression may be exacerbated by
his use of the Kabyle ethnography, as the fieldwork was conducted in the
1960s. Change is possible within Bourdieu’s schema. Moi describes him as
‘marxisant’, as change is brought about by crises which are a matter of praxis (Moi, 2000:322); thus social change is grounded in practice. This is temporal and therefore dynamic; it is an open system allowing for social change
(McNay, 1999:101). Bourdieu is therefore able to find a balance between economic determinism and the agency that is the individual’s lived experience.
For Bourdieu, individuals are free to make their own choices, but not in circumstances of their own choosing: the amount and quality of cultural, economic and social capital that they possess informs those choices and structures their mode of thought. Habitus is both determining and generative, by
virtue of its ability to constitute the field from which it emerges (McNay,
1999:100); it is the ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu, 1990a:52) that reproduces
the game.
It is the habitus that Bourdieu, correctly, considers to be gendered; arguing
that gender is ‘sexually characterised habitus’ (Bourdieu, 2001:3), embodied in
the bodily hexis (Ostrow, 2000:309). Further, he argues that this is an asymmetrical opposition (Bourdieu, 2001:27); that this is the fundamental dialectic at the heart of our classification and action in the world:
Bourdieu’s use of habitus thus refers to ‘the durable and generalised disposition that suffuses a person’s action throughout an entire domain of life’
(Camic, 2000:328),7 reviving the usage of the term by theorists such as Weber
and Durkheim (Camic: 333-345).8 Thus for Bourdieu, habitus refers to those
dispositions that ‘generate practices, perceptions and attitudes that are not
consciously coordinated or governed by rules, but nonetheless are regular
enough to appear consistent’ (Greener, 2002:691), being both conformity
with norms and their genesis (Camic, 2000:338); mediating between agency
and structure as both the pretext for practice and the context for it (Ostrow,
2000:317). It is the ‘original presentation of the world for a perceiving bodysubject’ (Ostrow, 2000: 314-317), or the ‘webs of meaning, we ourselves have
spun’ (Geertz, 1993:5). Habitus then is both a set of embodied predispositions and the mechanism through which power relations may be ‘mis-recognised’ (Ostrow, 2000:312); it is ‘culture’ (Jenkins, 2000:151). In this way
inequality appears to be naturalised; social inequalities are enacted through
the gentle repetition of practice (McNay, 1999:99), shaping consciousness in
a way similar to Lukes’ third dimension of power. 9
Maria Mies (1998) makes a similar point, arguing that the sexual division of
labour is the precursor to the capitalist division of labour. Without the division between the public and private realms, and the unpaid labour of the
housewife, the free wage labourer is not ‘free’ to sell his labour. Indeed, she
argues that the development of the classes based on appropriation is
‘…intrinsically interwoven with the establishment of patriarchal control over
women, as the main ‘producers of life’ in its two aspects’ (Mies, 1998:66).10
The sexual division of labour underpins the capitalist division.
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The social order functions as an immense symbolic machine tending
to ratify the masculine domination on which it is founded: it is the sexual division of labour (Bourdieu, 2001:9).
Why does Bourdieu not also conceive of gender as a form of capital? His
use of capital is both metaphoric and materialistic. Marx used capital to refer
to dialectically linked domination and appropriation (Martin & Szelényi,
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2000:284); Bourdieu, in his definition of cultural capital, also uses the term
metaphorically. However, Martin & Szelényi appear mistaken to argue that
he ‘does not consider it as a source of income’ (Martin & Szelényi, 2000:
284); for Bourdieu, capital is accumulated labour and this process of accumulation takes time and further has ‘...a potential capacity to produce profits
and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded form...’ (Bourdieu,
1986b:241). It is this ability of capital to reproduce itself that leads Bourdieu
to conclude that it is therefore part of the structure of society that both
enables and constrains individuals’ lives. For Bourdieu capital is synonymous
with power (Bourdieu, 1986b:243), and, following Marx, transferable (Marx,
1867a:1); the three forms of capital are all directly and indirectly convertible
both with each other (Bourdieu, 1986b:243) and with economic capital,
though they are not reducible to the economic (Beasley-Murray, 2000:2).
Thus cultural capital may be indirectly transferable into economic advantage:
‘it [cultural capital] is in the last instance always subordinated to the logic of
money capital’ (Martin & Szelényi, 2000:286). Though this may be true, it is
also correct, I feel, to say that as capital is directly transferable in to economic capital, it would be better to view gender, and indeed race, as a form of
capital as the benefits gender and race accrue can also be transferred indirectly into economic gain.
Mies, in her discussion of the ‘housewifization’ of labour, reveals the double
edged nature of the capital with which a third world woman comes to the job
market. On the one hand, having been defined as a house-wife by the multinationals her income is regarded as supplementary to that of her husband
and so will be low, but her ‘nimble fingers’ do at least gain her employment
whilst her partner may be forced to migrate to the city or abroad in search of
work. Thus she becomes the sole ‘bread-winner’ on a supplementary income
(Mies, 1998:118-119). Bourdieu argues that:
Economic theory has allowed to be foisted upon it [capital] a defini tion of the economy of practices which is the historical invention of
capitalism; […] it has implicitly defined the other forms of exchange
as non-economic, and therefore disinterested (Bourdieu, 1986b:242).
By conceptualising gender as both habitus and as a form of capital one is
enabled to study the non-economic or ‘private’ realm in terms that can
explain power relations, expanding and contextualising the notion of the economic sphere and echoing many feminists’ concentration on the family.
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3. Gender as both Capital and Habitus
Gender cuts across all of the forms of capital as discussed by Bourdieu
(Egerton, 1997:275): it informs how we all experience life and our sense of
self. Our sense of gender is socially constructed and produces a gender differentiated habitus (Bourdieu, 2001:55); studies of children whose gender
was ‘incorrectly’ assigned at birth have helped to reveal the social and cultural construction of gender identities; gender plays an important role in socialisation (Zigler et al, 1982:56); the individual internalises gender appropriate
behaviour and external values (McCall, 1992:843). From nursery school
onwards, children are more likely to seek company from those of the same
gender as themselves (McCandless, 1973:807) and teachers tend to reinforce
gender-appropriate activities for children, even when there is no official compulsion to do so (Griffiths, 1977:31). This is borne out by choice of university course: although girls out-perform boys at school, women are concentrated in the social sciences, the arts and humanities, whereas men are in the
‘hard’ sciences. Invariably, women bring to the labour market qualifications
that are of ‘less value’ and this has important repercussions for their future
employment and financial well-being.
Social capital is also heavily influenced by gender, the implications of which
include the fact that women are more likely to be promoted to levels where
women are already present. This is due in some part to the ‘sex-typing’ of
jobs, but is also connected to same-sex alliances: ‘it may be that what is
thought of as a glass ceiling is actually a glass door, which can only be opened
by women if other women have opened it previously’ (Cohen et al 1998:723).
Social and cultural capital combine to form a ‘gendered habitus’ or predisposition which structures men and women’s decisions, behaviours and opportunities. Yet, as gender is an ‘asymmetrical category’ (Krais, 1993:157;
Laberge, 1995:133; McCall, 1992:846), society prioritises the masculine over
the feminine habitus, affecting also those who adopt feminine behaviour. An
example of this might be gay men, who deviate from masculine habitus and
are accordingly treated as less than ‘real men’ (Krais, 1993:171).11 This symbolic hierarchy has material effects: women are placed in an economically vulnerable position; they are concentrated in low-status, low-pay, part-time
employment; women and their children constitute the most economically disadvantaged group across the globe (Mies, 1998: 112-144). Lovell argues that
women have different opportunities to resist or submit to gender domination
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(by ‘passing’ as men, for example), according to their social class position
(Lovell, 2000:18). However, Lovell may be mistakenly optimistic when she
states that women ‘are not clustered together ‘below’, with men clustered
together ‘above’’ (Lovell, 2000:21). The experience of being a woman,
though felt differently across the classes, is still removed from that of men;
many have discussed the ‘feminization of poverty’ (Feinberg & Knox, 1990;
Goldberg & Koemen, 1990) and a similar process may be evidenced with
regards to ‘race capital’. I do not believe, as does Terry Lovell, that for
Bourdieu gender, race or sexuality (or even age) is ultimately secondary to
social class (Lovell, 2000:12). He understands gender to be the ‘paradigm of
symbolic domination’ (McNay, 1999:99). Bourdieu’s theory allows us to see
the connections between the different forms of domination enacted in society. Further, whilst the details of the gendered division of labour may differ
cross-culturally, all cultures appear to use gender to structure society in some
way (Moore, 1997). Thus ‘gendered’ cultural capital cuts across all social
groupings and classes; it is a prerequisite for all other forms of capital. As
the gender capital of men and women is asymmetrically opposed, men find
that they are more able to transfer their gender capital into the other forms
of capital: social, embodied, institutional and ultimately economic.
In 1974 Ann Oakley showed that women, when incorporated into the labour
market, tended to favour careers which serve as an extension of their ‘traditional’ role as carers, such as nursing, teaching etc (Oakley, 1974:60-90), a
trend that continues today. Often low-paid, part time and insecure, these
forms of employment have contributed to the feminization of poverty. So
why do women continue to favour these roles? If we theorise that women
are utilising their gender capital when seeking employment, or making decisions about their education, then it makes sense for them to pursue careers
centred on their socially ascribed, internalised and accepted skills.
…while to call a man ‘ambitious’ is to compliment him, to call a
woman ‘ambitious’ may be to insult her […] The career woman whose
work requires assertive characteristics may meet disapproval from
other women as well as from men, who consider her ‘sexless’ or
‘unfeminine’. Fear of such an outcome discourages many women
from pursuing ‘masculine’ careers, and is one of the main reasons why
occupational equality shows as yet no signs of being achieved (Oakley,
1974:88-89).
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A fear of appearing to be ‘un-feminine’ – undoing their gender capital and
seeking instead to adopt masculine strategies - may prevent women from
entering masculine roles and lead them instead to seek to consolidate the
attributes ascribed to them by gender ideology. This may be a strategy set
within the limits imposed by a gendered world, but it is a strategy nonetheless.
The most obvious way in which ‘femininity’ may be regarded as a strategy,
involving both investment and reward, is through ‘beauty’. The ideals of
feminine beauty have been problematic to feminisms. On the one hand,
many theorists have felt women to be trapped by the need/ desire to appeal
to the ‘male gaze’ (see for example Wolf, 1991); on the other, some have
sought the emancipatory aspects of politics through self-presentation (see for
example Butler, 1990). Paula Black and Ursula Sharma remind us that men
require little maintenance to turn their natural bodies into cultural ones, but
that for women ‘femininity is a state to be constantly sought’ (Black &
Sharma, 2001:101). For example, facial hair may be considered a problem for
those women who want to look ‘normal’. The hair itself may well be ‘natural’ but for these women to conform to social ideas of femininity requires
secret vigilance (Black & Sharma, 2001:107). This investment in their femininity may be regarded as part of their leisure time, as important for their
work, or purely to be regarded as ‘normal’. Black and Sharma wonder if this
is the result of the different institutions’ roles in the maintenance of femininity or due to the fact that ‘different women [in the salon] invest in their
femininity in different arenas’ (Black & Sharma, 2001:108). They also tentatively argue that different kinds of beauty treatment, and the different kinds
of salon in which they may be found, may appeal to women of different
social classes, with those treatments focussing on beauty being less ‘middle
class’ than those which offer ‘treatments’;
this differing relationship to the body seems to confirm Bourdieu’s
claim that the working class have an instrumental relationship to their
bodies, and that the middle class approach is characterised by seeing
the body as an end in itself (Bourdieu, 1984). This differentiation in
the types of treatments selected then does not appear to show that
only a particular class of women visit salons, but that once in the salon
the ‘habitus’ of the woman leads to different activities (Black &
Sharma, 2001:112).
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The class of the women interacts with their gender to position them differently with regards to femininity as an ‘ideal type’ (Black & Sharma,
2001a:114). Other women may instead concentrate on their education or
their role within the family; on motherhood.
Bourdieu argues that women play a central role in the family by converting
economic capital into symbolic capital through their display of cultural taste
(Bourdieu, 2001:98-99). More subtle investments of gender are discussed by
Sharma and Black, such as those of ‘emotional labour’, which refers to the
‘active maintenance of the ‘objects’ emotional state’ often through the suppression of one’s own emotions’ (Sharma & Black, 2001:925). Prevalent in
the ‘caring’ industries and ‘invisible or unacknowledged’, emotional labour
may be seen as an extension of the role of women in the home; as simply
intrinsic to womanhood (Sharma & Black, 2001: 928). The beauty therapists
interviewed by Black & Sharma stressed the emotional labour inherent in
their role, perhaps as a strategy to represent their profession in a more serious light (Sharma &Black, 2001:921). This strategy may be problematic,
however, for by stressing skills which are seen as inherently female and not
developed through training and qualification, they may undermine their claim
to ‘professional’ status (Sharma & Black, 2001:929). Similarly, Terry Lovell
highlights the investment strategies of working class and elite women in their
attempt to pass as fighting men (Lovell, 2000:19), showing that they may be
similar to the honour strategies of Kabyle men; both are transferable into
economic capital via networks, job opportunities etc. Yet as Black and
Sharma remind us, the ability of women to transfer their gender capital into
economic capital is structured by their class position:
…it is important to note that one woman’s leisure is another woman’s
work. The beauty industry itself, whilst providing the site for carefully packaged and segmented parcels of free time, is also the site of work
involving physical labour, emotional work, long hours, low pay, and
often poor work conditions for those employed within it (Black &
Sharma, 2001:104).
work used to be – a kind of ‘feminine’ work seen as a realistic aspiration for
the working-class girl yet not infra dig for the middle-class girl’ (Sharma &
Black, 2001:916). Women thus have the same possibility of transferring their
cultural capital as do men; however their capital is not valued so highly, and
is often allied to that of their male partner. It is this aspect of gender that
leads me to agree with Laberge, who argues that gender should be seen as
part of embodied capital; however, though gender is embodied, it is also
transferable: ‘gendered dispositions work also as sources of power’ (Laberge,
1995:138).
Bourdieu recognises men’s masculinity strategies as those of investment, as
the games of honour have economic and political effects (Fowler, 2002:4).
Excluded from the ‘games’ of the men, women are in a critical position
(Bourdieu, 2001:75); they both recognise the ‘silliness’ of the games and provide the ‘flattering mirror’ to them (Bourdieu, 2001:75-80). However, for
Bourdieu there is a ‘radical dissymmetry between man, the subject, and
woman, the object of the exchange; between man, who is responsible for and
controls production and reproduction, and woman, the transformed product
of this labour’ (Bourdieu, 2001:45). By focussing on women as objects of
exchange between men, Bourdieu misses the investment strategies of the
women themselves (Lovell, 2000:23-24). Femininity, no less than masculinity, may be considered an asset, dependent on context (Gottfried, 1998:461;
Moi, 2000:331; Laberge, 1995:142). Indeed, the success of women in education may be related to the high numbers of female teachers and an environment which seeks ‘feminine’ type characteristics from its pupils; this may be
why boys appear to be falling behind and why the British government is now
keen to recruit more male teachers. Further, the strategies of middle class
feminists that first led to increased education for women and to second wave
feminism, may in part be responsible for the reconstitution of the mental/
manual divide (Fowler, 2002:10) which restricts working class women to
employment centred on their ‘traditional’ skills.
This reminds us that while some women may invest in their gendered identities through recourse to beauty therapy, this service is often provided by
women of a different class who are also utilising their own gendered identities. The investment strategies of women in beauty are cross-cut by their
social class and racial positions. ‘Possibly beauty therapy is – as secretarial
In this respect, my argument may be considered similar to that of Gouldner
(as outlined in Martin & Szelényi, 2000); however, where he views cultural
capital to be a form of economic capital, I would argue that it is analogous
to it, but not identical. Cultural capital may be autonomous from the economic sphere, and may even contradict it. One of Bourdieu’s strengths is in
his ability to show the relative autonomy of gender domination (Bourdieu,
2001:81; Fowler, 2002:1). Gouldner is correct to see the convertibility of
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money capital - this is important, for by viewing access to cultural capital as
relatively autonomous from the economic sphere, though transferable to it,
feminism is able to free Bourdieuian analysis from any economic determinism and thus realise its emancipatory potential.
A problem with a Bourdieuian approach to the interplay between class and
gender lies in its failure to integrate gender into a field (McNay, 1999:96-107);
similar difficulties may face those studying race as a form of capital. Moi
argues that as gender does not have a field of its own; it does not therefore
constitute a form of capital (Moi, 2000:330). However, no capital has a ‘pure’
field, as there is always resistance; the family may be said to be dominated by
gender sufficiently to constitute its primary field. For Bourdieu the family is
a ‘realised category’ (Bourdieu, 1996), and ‘the family always tends to function as a field, with its physical, economic and, above all, symbolic power relations’ (Bourdieu, 1996:22). The family is thus the field in which gender is
reproduced and realised. Bourdieu argues that the family is central to the
maintenance of the social order (Bourdieu, 2001:85; 1996:23) and that in
order to understand masculine domination we should study those institutions
central to its reproduction (Bourdieu, 2001: 85). The family has long been
studied within feminism as the primary site of gender domination and social
reproduction.
‘To change the world, one has to change the ways of making the world, that
is, the vision of the world and the practical operations by which groups are
produced and reproduced’ (Bourdieu, 1990b:137). Studies such as those of
Greener (2002) and Lovell (2000), are now beginning to focus on the way that
the economic context and governmental policy limit and frame life-style, in a
manner reminiscent of Polanyi’s challenge to view the economy of ‘others’
as embedded in social relations (Polanyi, 1968), though finally applied to our
capitalism. However, it is not enough to view the gendering of levels of capital as limiting life-opportunities; gender itself must be viewed as a capital and
as a strategy, with the power to cross fields.
Conclusion
The three forms of capital, as outlined by Bourdieu, interact to structure not
only people’s life opportunities but also their modes of thought, and gender
cuts across all of the three forms of capital. Whilst some have therefore discussed a ‘gendered habitus’ (McCall, 1992; Laberge, 1995) it seems more realPage 31
istic to advocate the study of a ‘Gender Capital’, for this capital is imbued
before all other forms of capital, structures the way the other forms of capital are actualised, and can itself be transferred indirectly into economic capital. In the same way that patriarchy existed long before the advent of capitalism and so structured its development, so gender capital informs the accumulation of social, cultural and economic capitals. A child is gendered before
s/he learns to speak. The gender capital gained as a child has repercussions
throughout life. An infant who learns to be a woman will find that her femininity is both a constraint and an enabler; her habitus is gendered, as is her
future. By learning to be a woman, she unwittingly reproduces the system that
subordinates the feminine. By choosing the forms of education and employment that she does, by adopting the behaviour considered suitable for her sex
and teaching this to her daughter, a woman plays an important role in the
continuation of the existing social hierarchy.
This social hierarchy is a sociocultural construction: it is not related to biological factors, but is inscribed on the bodies of the agents. It is a hierarchy
conceived, constructed and reproduced in the cultural sphere, though it is
naturalised to such a degree that biology is often given as the main causal factor. If feminists wish to change the status quo, they must first seek to understand how gender identity is transmitted, and then seek to change the culture
that creates such a difference between the expectations and status of men
and women. Where Bourdieu concentrates on the durable and reproduced,
Judith Butler focuses on the fluid and unstable which ‘contrasts at times
starkly with the durability of Bourdieu’s dispositional subject’ (Lovell,
2000:12). Yet surely the unchanging aspects of masculine domination do
need to be explained. Bourdieu is correct to say that one cannot liberate the
victims of symbolic violence by decree (Bourdieu, 2001:39); indeed it may be
when legal restrictions are abolished that the work begins (Krais, 1993:156).
Further, Bourdieu is able to articulate identity‘s ‘constructiveness’ in a more
tangible way than postmodernist theories such as those of Butler (1990).
Though we need to be aware of the dangers of symbolic determinism, this
does not mean a return to identity politics, but an awareness of the structural limits on identity formation. We need to distinguish between genderinflected forms of social capital and the advantage inherent in being male.
Further, Bourdieu’s conception stresses the damaging effects to men of their
having ‘to take serious games seriously’ (Moi, 2000:326). Men too are
ensnared by gender; they are ‘also prisoners, and insidiously victims, of the
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dominant representation’ (Bourdieu, 2001:49; see also Krais, 1993:171).
Women who are ‘exceptional agents’ (Moi, 2000:326) may perceive the irony,
and yet ‘women who laugh at male self-importance in university seminars
may find themselves constructed not as lucid critics of male ridicule, but as
frivolous females incapable of understanding truly serious thought’ (Moi,
2000:326).
There is a danger that Bourdieu may ‘mean all things to all people’ (Jenkins,
2000:149), and that by introducing such terms as ‘gender capital’ his scheme
may lose some specificity or explanatory power, yet concepts such as ‘race
capital’ are also argued for (McRobbie, 2002; Moi 2000). Terry Lovell calls
for a study of feminine capital, over time, to illuminate the investment strategies employed by women and their relationship to the strategies of men. By
studying the gendered nature of the strategies employed in contemporary
society, it may be possible to illuminate not only the ever changing interplay
between gender and class (Moi, 2000:329),12 but also the relationship between
patriarchy and capitalism, examining whether they are ‘mutually constitutive’
(Gottfried, 1998:453); whether these ‘forms of difference’ are always ‘experienced, constructed and mediated in interrelation with each other’ (Moore,
1997:196). A theoretical concern faced by feminism as a whole is that of the
role of women in their own subordination, and it is in helping us to understand this that Bourdieu’s theory may be of most use. Following Lovell, then,
I ask for a study of the strategies of women in Bourdieuian terms; ‘in terms
of the ‘capitals’ possessed, the composition of that capital, its trajectory over
time, and control over its deployment, to see whether these terms allow us to
cast new light on femaleness’ (Lovell, 2000:22).
Wendy Ashall ([email protected]) (Social Anthropology BA
Sussex) is currently working part-time towards an MA in Social and Political Thought
at the University of Sussex. She is also a part-time mother, a part-time barmaid, and
a part-time editor for Studies in Social and Political Thought.
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Footnotes
1. See Cooper and Dunne (1998) for a study into the effects of class on education
in the UK.
2. Cultural capital imbued during the period of socialisation and historically and
socially dependent. Linked to the body and temporal, it represents wealth converted into an integral part of the person (Bourdieu, 1986:244-245).
3. Cultural goods such as paintings, writings or sculptures, transmitted either symbolically or materially; the material wealth needed to possess such items, and the
cultural capital needed to ‘consume’ them (Bourdieu, 1986:246).
4. Academic qualifications, or certificates of competence, which enable comparison,
exchange and conversion between cultural and economic capital (Bourdieu,
1986:248).
5. See for example Fonow & Cook (1991); Hill Collins (1990) and Maguire (1987).
6. As discussed by Beverley Brown (1978).
7. Rather than to ‘the disposition to perform certain relatively elementary and specific activities’ or motor habits, more the concern of psychology (Camic, 2000:327;
Ostrow, 2000:311).
8. Like Kant, Bourdieu feels that habit should be overcome; for Kant through the
application of reason (Kant, 1784); for Bourdieu through reflexivity.
9. ‘A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do,
but he also exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his
very wants’ (Lukes, 1974:23), and in this way prevent conflict from ever occurring.
10. As agricultural producers and as mothers.
11. However, Bourdieu, perhaps surprisingly, feels that the gay community is in a
stronger position due to increased levels of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2001: 123;
Fowler, 2001:6).
12. See for example the collection edited by Mahony & Zmroczek (1997).
The Role of the Unconscious
in Nietzsche and Freud
Katrina Mitcheson
Introduction
In comparing the concept and role of the unconscious in the work of
Nietzsche and Freud my purpose is not to trace Nietzsche’s influence on
Freud; my aim is rather to draw attention to interesting aspects of their work
and to increase our understanding of their ideas. In taking a comparative
approach we find both common themes and important points of divergence.
The two writers set out with very different aims and take different methodological approaches. Freud’s starting point is his work with individual
patients; though he goes on to generalise about human nature he relies on an
appeal to clinical evidence. Freud’s project is fundamentally one of explanation, while Nietzsche’s is openly evaluative. Their approaches, however, come
closer than their own declarations would lead us to expect. Both writers rely,
to a large extent, on their own psychology and unusually astute personal
introspection, and both are guilty of generalising from these insights to
human-kind as a whole. Explanation plays an important role in Nietzsche’s
evaluative project and Freud’s discoveries in the name of scientific explanation cannot avoid evaluative implications. A better understanding of the
extent to which these two theorists converge can serve, therefore, to illuminate the problem of relating individual psychology to shared beliefs and values and shed light on the evaluative implications of providing such explanation.
I take Freud’s concept of the unconscious as my starting point in this comparative exercise, as it is he who develops and most explicitly expresses it. I
will then consider the extent to which the references, both direct and implicit, to unconscious thought in Nietzsche’s work suggest that he is using a functionally equivalent concept. Next I discuss whether an understanding of the
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Masculine Domination: Investing in Gender?

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